Dust of the Desert Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  COLONEL URGO REPAYS

  Before he had descended to the street Grant began to regret his flashof anger which had launched him out of Doc Stooder's office. To besure, the unconventional doctor had been insulting; his was hardly theorthodox reception to be expected by one who had crossed the continentto become his partner in some hidden enterprise. Equally certain it wasthat, to apply the cigar clerk's pat phrase, Stooder was "organizedfor the day"; the finishing touches to that organization had been madein two trips to the closet in Grant's presence. Need one have been sotouchy under these alcoholic circumstances?

  Strive as he would to put the best face on the matter, the man fromNew York could not escape a lowering of the spiritual barometer. Herehe was, a stranger in an outlandish desert town with none to give himso much as a friendly glance. Glances enough came his way, but theywere inspired by his clothes, the cut of which seemed to put thembeyond the pale. Grant pleasured himself by reviewing his case in themost pessimistic light. He had been but a fortnight ago a sober andindustrious citizen. Came to him a wild letter hinting darkly of someshadowy enterprise in a bleak land. Instantly he had quit his work andgalloped across two thousand miles to encounter a scarecrow cynic whogreeted him as a book agent.

  He wandered aimlessly beyond the town and out onto a road whichwound up to the edge of one of the mesas which were the eaves ofArizora. Well might drivers of passing cars stare at the figure of abroad-shouldered young man in a black derby and double-breasted coat,who was afoot in a country where no man walks unless he carries ablanket on his shoulders--unless he is a "stiff," in the phrase of theSouthwest. Even though February was but on the wane, already the sunwas guarantor of a promise to pay with heat interest in sixty days.

  He came to the top of the rise and halted under the psychic compulsionof boundless space. For space, crystalline and ethereal as the gulfbetween stars, flowed from him as an ocean. The air that filled thisspace was so thin, so impalpable as to seem no air at all, and it wastinted faint gold by reflection from the desert below. Mountains nearand far were so many detached reefs taking the silent surf of the oceanof space; they were tawny where shadows did not smear purple-blackdown their sides. Near at hand showed the grim desert growths: pricklyclumps of _cholla_, whose new daggers sparkled like frosted glass;fluted columns of _sahuaro_, or giant cactus, lifting their fat armstwenty and thirty feet above the ground; vivid green of cottonwoodslaid in a streak to mark a secret watercourse.

  To the man just come from the softness and languor of Easternlandscapes, where lakes lie in the laps of green hillocks, this firstintimate view of the desert carried some subtle terror prick. The ironsavagery of it! What right had man or beast to venture here?

  Then flashed to his mind the picture of Benicia O'Donoju, the girl wholoved the desert, who felt she was prisoner only when hedged about bythe walls of cities in the East. Somewhere to the south where a higherraft of peaks marked Sonora's mystery land--somewhere in country likethis she was speeding to her home. What kind of a home might that be?How could a girl with the bounding vitality that was hers find lifeworth living in a land enslaved by thirst? A hundred miles from townor railroad, she had said:--a hundred miles deep in such a wildernessher home! Heavens, how he pitied her!

  Grant turned back to the town, revolving over and over in his mindthe first steps he would have to take to learn where Benicia O'Donojulived; and, haply discovering the place of her abode, how to get there.

  By the time night fell the restless visitor to Arizora had exhaustedthe town's opportunities for amusement. He crossed the Line into thecompanion Mexican community, Sonizona. Here was beguilement enough.The rabbit-proof fence which converted Main Street into a CalleBenito Juarez also marked a frontier no less obvious. North of thefence was aridity to rejoice the conscience of the most enthusiasticprohibitionist; south of it the frail goddess Virtue tottered in herstep. In Arizona a man sought traps and deadfalls consciously andwith a secret thrill of bravado; in Sonora he avoided them only bythe most circumspect watching of his step. Dark streets winding alongthe contours of the crowding mountains were raucous with the bray ofphonographs and the tin-panning of pianos. Lattices over darkenedwindows trembled as one passed and the ghosts of whispers flutteredthrough them. Where an occasional arc lamp threw a spot of radianceacross the 'dobe road lurked shadowy creatures who whined in anAmerican dialect for money to buy drugs.

  Grant did not realize that when he passed through the rabbit-prooffence he left behind him everything for which he paid income tax andother doles--protection, due processes of law, all the checks andbalances on society and the individual painstakingly built up underthe Anglo-Saxon scheme of things. He did not conceive himself in thelight of an alien--of a not-too-popular nation--gratuitously placinghimself under the protection of laws quite the opposite in terms ofinterpretation. Nor did he appreciate that, save for his suitcase anda signature on a hotel register, he had left behind him nothing tobear testimony to the fact that a man named Grant Hickman had cometo Arizora and had left the United States to enter Mexico. All theseinattentions he recalled later when opportunity for correction hadpassed.

  Grant was circling the plaza, where the municipal band was giving aconcert, when amid the strollers he thought he saw a familiar face. Helooked again and was sure. Little Colonel Urgo, in a snappy uniform ofdark blue with back-turned cape, was walking with a woman whose beautywas that of the blown peony. Chance brought Urgo's eyes Grant's way.They lighted with sudden surprise, then the colonel brought up his handin a salute. A flash of teeth was cut by the travelling hand; it waslike a too quick shutter on the villain's smile in Way Down East.

  Grant doffed his hat and passed on. Half an hour later a particularlyglittering sheaf of lights he had noted in earlier saunterings prickedhis curiosity and he turned into a low building just off the plaza. Abare front room easily visible from the street was a too obvious blindfor complacent police inspection; through an open arch in its rear walla crowded gambling room was given false length by wall mirrors in dingyframes. Fifty or more men and women were clustered about roulette,faro and crap tables. A fat Chinaman with a face expressionless as abowl of jelly sat on a dais behind a little desk stacked high withsilver and with deft movement of his fingers achieved nice problems ininternational exchange. Pursuit of the goddess Luck was being engagedin with a frankness and business-like absorption quite different fromfurtive evasions of hidden attic and camouflaged club across the Line.

  Grant exchanged a ten-dollar note for a heavy stack of Mexican silverand moved over to a table where two ivory cubes were dancing to thedroning incantations of a big negro game keeper. He was curious to seewhether Big Dick and Lady Natural were as temperamental a couple inMexico as he had discovered them to be in many a front-line dugout inFrance.

  "Come to papa!" A raw-boned Arizonan across the table was singing tothe dice held in his cupped palms, huge as waffle irons; a humorous impof strong liquor danced in his eyes. "Cap'n come down the gangplank andsays, 'Good mawnin', Seven!'"

  The ring of dark faces about the green cloth stirred and white teethflashed unlovely smiles when a six and a one winked up from the dice. Achinking of silver dollars as a red paw gathered them in.

  "Baby! Now meet you' grandpaw, Ole Man E-oleven. Wham! Lookit! Five an'a six makes e'oleven! How's that for nussin' 'em along, white man?"The crap wizard looked across to Grant and grinned in amity. Mexicanscowls accompanied the covering of the winner's pile left temptinglyuntouched. Grant felt an undefined tugging of race bonds here in thisring of alien faces, and he backed the Arizonan against the field. Onhis third throw the big fellow made his point.

  "That's harvestin'! That's bringin' in the sheaves! Now here's my stackof 'dobe dollars for any Mex to cop if he thinks the copping's good."

  When it came Grant's turn to throw his new-found friend played himvociferously against the Mexican field, calling upon all present towitness that a white man sure could skin anything under a sombrero,from craps to parchesi.
For the first time since he had left the trainthat morning the New Yorker felt the warming tingle of fellowship; thegaunt, sunburned face of the desert man with the dancing imps of humourin the eyes was a jovial hailing sign of fraternity.

  "Shoot 'em, Mister Man! You're rigged for Broadway, Noo Yawk, but I cansee from here that you has the lovin' touch."

  Grant rolled and won, rolled and won again. Carelessly he dropped theheavy fistfuls of dollars into the side pocket of his coat. Even whenhe lost his point, he had a bulging weight of silver there. Grant wasenjoying the game itself not nearly so keenly as he did the Arizonanacross the table, his Homeric humour and the bewildering wonder of hisvocabulary. So intent was he that he did not see Colonel Urgo enter,nor did he catch the almost imperceptible nod toward him that thelittle officer passed to a furtive-eyed tatterdemalion who accompaniedhim. The latter by a devious course of idling finally came to a standbehind Grant and appeared to be a keen spectator of the game.

  "Ole Man Jed Hawkins' son is a-goin' splatter out a natch'ral. Ole ManHawkins' son is a-goin' turn loose the hay cutter an' mow him a mess ofgreens. Comes Little Joe! Dip in, Mexes, an' takes yo' fodder! Now theman from Dos Cabezas starts a-runnin'--"

  A hand was busy at Grant's pocket--a slick, suave hand which replacedweight for weight what it subtracted. Just three quick passes andthe tatterdemalion who had been so intent on the prancing dice lostinterest and moved away.

  It came Grant's turn to roll the dice. He dipped into his pocket andcarelessly dropped a stack of eight silver dollars on the table. Oneof them rolled a little way and flopped in front of a Mexican player.The latter started to pass the dollar back to Grant when he hesitated,gave the coin a sharp scrutiny, then balanced it on a finger tip andstruck its edge with one from his own pile.

  "Senor!" An ugly droop to his smiling lips. "Ah, no, senor!"

  He passed the dollar over to Grant with exaggerated courtesy. Eyes allabout the table, which had followed the pantomime with avid interest,now centred on the American's face. As if on a signal the fat Chinamanat the exchange desk waddled over to shoulder his way officiously toGrant's side. He growled something in Spanish and held out his hand.Dazedly Grant laid the suspected dollar in a creasy palm. The Chinamanflung it on the green felt with a contemptuous "Faugh!" and he pointedimperiously at Grant's bulging pocket.

  "It's a frame, pardner," called the Arizonan. "If your money's bogusit's what the Chink himself handed you."

  "I came in here with American money and changed it at your desk,"Grant quietly addressed the Chinaman. "See here; this is the money Ieither got from you or won at this table." He brought from his pocket abrimming handful of Mexican dollars and dumped them on the cloth. Twoor three of the heavy discs shone true silver; the others were clumsycounterfeits, dull and leaden.

  A cry, half snarling laughter, from the crowd about the table, nowgrown to a score: "Aha--gr-ringo!"

  A movement of the crowd forward to rush Grant against the wall. Thenwith a cougar's spring the big Arizonan was on the solid table, feetspread wide apart, head towering above the tin light shade. He balanceda chair in one hand as the conductor of an orchestra might lift hisbaton. His gaunt features were split in a wide grin. Before Grant couldgather his senses a big paw had him by the shoulder and was dragginghim up onto the green island of refuge.

  "They don't saw no whizzer off on a white man wiles ole Jed Hawkins'boy got his health," Grant's companion bellowed a welcome. "I got thesegreasers' number, brother!"

  Grant's gaze as he rose to his feet over the heads all aboutencountered two interesting objects. One was Colonel Urgo, who stoodalone in a far corner of the room; the colonel was smiling with raregood humour. A second was a man wrapped about with a blanket, overwhose shoulder appeared the tip of a rifle; he was just coming throughfrom the front room on a run and there were three like him following.Rurales, the somewhat informal bandit-policemen of Mexico.

  Just what ensued Grant never could quite piece together. He rememberedseeing Hawkins wrench off a leg from his chair and send it whizzing ata central cluster of light globes in mid-ceiling. They snuffed out witha thin tinkling of glass. Then the rush.

  Out of the dark swirl of figures about the table's edge a vivid spitof flame--roar of a pistol shot. Hands grappling for braced legs onthe table top. "Huh" of breath expelled as Hawkins swung his chair ina wide sweep downward. A cry, "Hesus!" Oaths chirped in the voice ofsongbirds. A knife missing its objective and trembling rigid in themidst of the baize.

  The table collapsed with dull creakings, and then the affair of maulingand writhing became a bear pit. Grant fought with steady, measuredshort-arm jabs delivered at whatever object lay nearest. When one armwas pinioned he swung the other against the restraining body until itwas freed. Some one sank teeth in his shoulder.

  "Ride 'em, Noo Yawker!" came the shrill cry of battle from somewhere inthe mill. Then a blow at the base of the brain which meant lights outfor Grant.

  When consciousness came halting back he found himself standinghalf-supported by two of the rurales in a dark street and before ahigh gate in unbroken masonry. The gate swung inward. He was propelledviolently through the dark arch and into a small room, where sat a manin uniform under a dusty electric globe. He did not look up from thescratching of his pen on the desk before him.

  A door behind the writing man opened and Colonel Urgo entered. Hisstart at seeing the bloodied and half-clothed figure which the ruralessupported was well acted. A hand came to the vizor of his cap inmocking salute. Then he turned to the man at the desk and exchanged lowwords with him.

  "Ah, Senor 'Ickman"--Colonel Urgo's voice was tender as the dove's--"Iregret to learn you are here in the _carcel_ on serious charges. Theone, counterfeiting the coin of Mexico; the other, resisting officersof the law. Very regrettable, Senor 'Ickman. But, remembering yourcourtesies toward me on the train yesterday, let me assure you of mywillingness to serve you in any way. You will command me, senor."

  A sudden lightning flash of comprehension shot through the clouds thatpressed down on the prisoner's mind. He saw the whole trick of thecounterfeit dollars in his pocket and remembered the little Spaniard'sthreat on the observation platform of the train the night before:"To-morrow we touch Mexico, where it is known that Colonel HamilcarUrgo is a law unto himself." Grant strained forward and his mouthopened to incoherent speech.

  "And now, senor," Colonel Urgo continued blandly, "unfortunately youwill be locked up incommunicado."

  Five minutes later Grant Hickman, behind a steel-studded door in aMexican jail, was as wholly out of the world as a man in a sunkensubmarine.